I know many a Nigerian national would not take kindly to the caption of my article. The fact of the matter, however, is that it is better to tell the cold, unpleasant truth than to pretend that the kind of ethnic- and region-based presidential politics subscribed to by some major political parties in Africa's most populous country is one that is worthy of emulation.
What is rather sardonically fascinating, for quite the opposite reasons, however, is the fact that some Ghanaian citizens have begun demanding precisely this sort of unsavory political culture and/or regime that is more likely to guarantee deepening ethnic divisions than foster the kind of cross-ethnic cohesion which is the fundamental prerequisite to forging a civilized modern/postcolonial sense of nationhood.
Recently, for example, a Mr. Seth Tagoe, appearing before the Mills-appointed Constitution Review Commission, called for the establishment of "a rotation of the Presidency on ethnic basis[,] so as to introduce equity at the presidency" (See "Lawyers Reject Presidential Rotation System" (MyJoyOnline.com 9/29/30). The primary, and it also appears the sole, grounds for such ethnocentric advocacy, on the part of the petitioner, is the fact of no Ga-Dangme indigene having been democratically elected President of Ghana. Interestingly, as the three prominent Ghanaian lawyers who were reported to have promptly rejected such parochial political arrangement aptly pointed out, were such a system to be endorsed, not only would the Universal Adult Suffrage upon which Ghana's Fourth Republican Constitution is predicated be flagrantly aborted, our very sense of a cohesive national identity would be seriously impaired, almost definitely beyond repair.
For starters, in a democracy, it is the voting majority that determines which party and presidential candidate forms and runs the government, not simply any marginal band of (even genuinely) aggrieved citizens who would have their will and/or desire legislated as law. Thus in objecting to the present constitutional arrangement, Mr. Tagoe appears to be advocating for the sort of barely manageable political culture which prevails in Nigeria, largely the handiwork of the Hausa-Fulani-dominated northern-half of that country.
Perhaps the ever-rational and constructive Prof. Mike Oquaye put it best when he offered the following riposte: "What kind of [presidential] rotation do we anticipate? Someone tells me that there are more than five-hundred recognized tribes in Ghana[,] and even more than [one-]thousand unrecognized ones: so what is the level of rotation, for example, and wouldn't such an arrangement be deepening ethnicity which we also want to avoid?" (See "Lawyers Reject Presidential Rotation System" MyJoyOnline.com 9/29/10).
The drift of Prof. Oquaye's all-too-rational argument can hardly be disputed, although I would not venture as far as seeming to endorse that which clearly does not exist, by way of the approximate number of "ethnic groups," as distinguished from "tribes," in the country. Needless to say, if any self-perceived tribe in Ghana is not officially recognized, then, of course, there is almost every reason to believe that it is perhaps largely composed of a bunch of some charlatanic cynics. There are those unenlightened citizens, for example, who believe that an Asante, Akyem, Adanse and Fante are different ethnic nationalities when, in fact, these groups are essentially discrete pre-colonial polities belonging to the same Akan meta-ethnic nationality.
Ghana Is Not Nigeria!!! (http://www.saharareporters.com/article/ghana-not-nigeria)